Muscat, August 26: The Swine Flu scare has apparently made a dent in tourist arrivals in the southern Dhofar governorate during the current Khareef or monsoon season, newly released statistics indicate.
The number of visitors arriving in Salalah between June 21, when the Khareef season started officially, and August 17 decreased to 257,554 from 389,677 during the same period of 2008.
There has been a jump in the number of people affected by H1N1 in the country since the first cases were recorded at the end of July. Between August 18 and 22 some 250 new cases were reported, taking the total number of affected people to more than 800. Five people, all nationals, have so far died from the disease.
The National Committee for Follow-up and Management of H1N1 said the latest victim was an elderly woman who suffered from pneumonia. “Due to her late arrival in hospital for treatment, she did not respond to medications and ultimately died,” it said.
A vast majority – 92 per cent – of the visitors to Dhofar this year has been from Oman and the GCC countries, accounting for 238,177 of the total. Tourists from the Sultanate totalled 145,657, (56.55 per cent), the UAE 68,838 (26.73 per cent), Saudi Arabia 14,958, Kuwait 3,312, Qatar 2,839 and Bahrain 2,573.
The number of Asian visitors was 13,513, Arabs 3,594 and Europeans 1,552.
–Agencies